‘Behold Ye Ramblers’ by Neil Gore
19 April 2024
Last Saturday we were at The Place in Bedford to see the Townsend Theatre production of ‘Behold Ye Ramblers’, a new one-person play, written and performed by Neil Gore, which tells the story of the Clarion movement that started in the late 19th century. In 1891 the journalist Robert Blatchford founded a weekly newspaper called ‘The Clarion’ to draw attention to the conditions suffered by working people in industrialised Victorian Britain and to spread a socialist message. But from the start, Blatchford’s vision was of better support for workers, both in the factories and in their recreational and cultural activities. This led to a large network of local Clarion Cycling Clubs, Vocal Unions, Dramatic Societies, Handicrafts Clubs, ‘Cinderella Clubs’ (for children) and Rambling Clubs, which started the struggle for the right to roam freely across open moors on ancient paths. The Sheffield Clarion Ramblers, founded in 1900, is recognised as the first working class rambling club and survived until 2015. The National Clarion Cycling Club still survives today, as does the People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne, which began its life in 1911 as the Newcastle Clarion Drama Club. Neil Gore’s play shows the growth of the Clarion movement through speeches, poetry, and music hall songs, making you feel like you are at a Clarion Club meeting through lots of audience participation. He makes clever use of projections of actual Clarion newspaper pages and posters for Clarion Vocal Union concerts, together with colourised early film of working class communities. It’s a fascinating story which demonstrates the strong socialist roots of many of our everyday creativity traditions today. The tale of The Clarion reminded me a lot of ‘The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists’, so it was interesting to discover that a one-person Magic Lantern show of Robert Tressell’s classic book is going to be the next production from Townsend Theatre. https://www.townsendproductions.org.uk/shows/behold-ye-ramblers/
posted by Robin Simpson @ 8:47 am
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